Massage is a well-known technique to increase blood flow and ease muscle tension in a person's body. Typically, in a massage, pressure is applied to a location on the body either by direct hand/finger manipulation or through a device that aids in the application of pressure.
Such devices include both user-manipulated tools and motorized devices which vibrate, knead, and/or rotate to manipulate a desired body part. These massage tools may either be used by the individual receiving the massage or by another person (e.g., a masseuse).
One area of the body that frequently needs the therapeutic effects of massage is the foot, particularly the sole or bottom of the foot. Typical foot massagers have one or more sets of rollers rotatably mounted within a fixed frame. A user rolls his feet across the fixed rollers to apply massaging pressure to the bottom of his foot. These massagers, however, do not allow the user to change the location of the roller(s) in the frame and therefore cannot be configured to optimize the rollers position to target a particular part of the foot.
The broad purpose of the present disclosure is to provide a foot massaging device that has a plurality of foot contacting rollers which can be adjusted to massage various parts of the foot. The massager is adjustable by seating the rearwardly disposed rollers between a raised and lowered position to configure the massager to contact different portions of a user's foot.
The preferred massager includes a frame having opposed vertical walls. Three rollers are adjustably mounted in-parallel between the opposed walls. The rollers are mounted in a spaced relationship such that they present a front, middle and rear roller to a user. The middle and rear rollers being adjustable vertically within channels formed in each wall. In this manner, the middle and rear rollers can be selectively placed in a raised position (relative to the front roller) or in a lowered position where the axis(es) of rotation of the adjustable roller(s) are co-planar with the rotational axis of the front roller.
It is an advantage of the present disclosure that the massaging device allows a user to configure the device to massage a particular part of the foot.
The massager has a first position which aligns all of the rollers in-parallel allowing a user to roll his foot or feet across a substantially horizontal row of spaced massaging rollers. The second position sets the middle roller in the elevated position, while the rear roller is lowered. The second position allows the user to roll his foot along a curved profile to better follow the curvature of the foot's arch. A third position is possible by setting the rear roller in the elevated position, while the middle roller is lowered. In this third position, the front two rollers contact a user's foot bottom, while the rear roller contacts the top of the foot. A fourth position has both the middle and rear rollers in the elevated position, in this fourth position, the massager presents a substantially flat row of rollers that are at an angle relative to the ground (from front to back roller), in this fourth position a user can roll his feet across the rollers while sitting down in substantially the same way as the first position.
It is another advantage of the present disclosure that the rollers can be supplemented with a textured outer surface to further increase and vary the pressure exhibited on the user's feet when rolled across the device.
It is still another advantage of the present disclosure that each of the rollers is comprised of two axially aligned rollers which are independently rotatable about a common axis of rotation. In this manner, a user can roll both feet simultaneously across the rollers at different speeds and/or in opposite directions.
Still further objects and advantages of this disclosure will become readily apparent to those skilled in the art to which the invention pertains upon reference to the following detailed description.